Brian Harman says he plans on drinking Guinness and riding his new tractor after becoming the winner of The 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, where he lifted the Claret Jug following a six-shot victory over a chasing pack including Jon Rahm
Monday 24 July 2023 11:46, UK
Brian Harman admits he struggled to see where his next win would come from, or whether it would even come at all, as he celebrated his maiden major title with a dominant victory at The 151st Open Championship.
A five-shot lead entering the final day became six by the end of it as an unflinching Harman shot a round of 70 to march to a famous victory at Royal Liverpool and become Champion Golfer of the Year.
It served as his first win since the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship, Harman shining around the greens while quashing any hope of a fight back from the likes of Jon Rahm to lift the Claret Jug and succeed Cameron Smith as champion.
"You know, I've always had a self-belief that I could do something like this. It's just when it takes so much time it's hard not to let your mind falter, like maybe I'm not winning again," Harman told reporters.
"I'm 36 years old. Game is getting younger. All these young guys coming out, hit it a mile, and they're all ready to win. Like... when is it going to be my turn again?
"It's been hard to deal with. I think someone mentioned that I've had more top 10s than anyone since 2017, so that's a lot of times where you get done, you're like, dammit, man, I had that one; it just didn't happen for whatever reason.
"Yeah, to come out and put a performance like that together, like start to finish, just had a lot of control. I don't know why this week, but I'm very thankful that it was this week."
Harman rarely looked like succumbing to the pressure of such a handsome cushion on his way to victory, twice responding to a bogey with back-to-back birdies in his final round in a display of resilience that would seemingly quieten the local crowd.
"After I made the second bogey yesterday, a guy, when I was passing him, he said, Harman, you don't have the stones for this. That helped," he laughed.
"Yeah, that helped a lot. Anyway, it helped snap me back into 'I'm good enough to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to go through my process, and the next shot is going to be good'.
"You know, I'm not going to give any more - I shouldn't have given him credit right there. Yeah, just the resilience, just knowing - I knew I was going to make - I figured at some point that I was going to hit bad shots.
"Just with the weather and the scenario, you're going to hit bad shots. I knew that the way I responded to that would determine whether I'd be sitting here or not."
As far as celebrations go, the Georgia native and keen hunter said he plans on drinking Guinness from the Claret Jug before heading home to play with one of his newest toys.
"I had a nice week a couple weeks ago and I bought a new tractor for my hunting place, so I'll get home and I'll be on the tractor mowing grass in the next few weeks, so I'm excited about that," he added.
"We've got about 25 acres of food plots that need, and, gosh, I don't know how many miles of roads, but I'd call it probably 40 acres total that needs to get mowed."
The PGA Tour season continues with the 3M Open in Minneapolis, beginning on Thursday, while the next DP World Tour event is the ISPS Handa World Invitational - co-sanctioned with the LPGA Tour - in Northern Ireland from August 17-20.
Two women's majors remain on the 2023 calendar, the Evian Championship from Thursday and the AIG Women's Open from August 10-13, while the next men's major will be McIlroy's latest Grand Slam bid at The Masters in April.
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